When placing shapes or other objects in a diagramming or drawing application, the user often wants equal spacing between the shapes. The drawing application may show spacing guides between the various shapes on in the diagram in order to assist the user in spacing the shapes or objects relative to each other. In addition, the shape being placed or moved may “snap” to a position of spacing between it and neighboring shapes equal to that between other shapes in the diagram, with spacing guides displayed to show the equal spacing between the various shapes.
Some diagramming or drawing applications may only show spacing guides between adjacent or consecutive shapes or objects, which may be too limited to be helpful to the user. Other applications may show spacing guides between any pair of shapes having equal spacing. However, in a large diagram with many shapes, this may be computationally intensive and result in an unacceptable amount of “noise,” i.e. too many irrelevant spacing guides shown on the diagram.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.